Dick Tracy

*** Dick Tracy soundtrack (Sire/Warner Bros.): I still haven't seen Dick Tracy, so don't ask me if any of the songs on this album are heard for more than three seconds in the movie. Probably not, seeing as how it's one of three Dick Tracy albums, the others being Danny Elfman's score and Madonna's ''inspired-by Dick Tracy'' I'm Breathless.This Dick Tracy consists mostly of songs co-written by producer Andy Paley and sung by a disparate collection of stars. And Lord-a-mighty, what are neo-country chanteuse k.d. lang, hardcore rapper Ice-T, teeny-bopper idol Tommy Page, synth-rockers Erasure and rock 'n' roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis doing on the same album?

Friends and family gathered Sunday in Lithgow, N.Y., to say farewell to Tony Award-winning actress Natasha Richardson. Liam Neeson and five other pallbearers carried his wife's coffin into St. Peter's Episcopal Church, near the home where the two married in 1994. After a graveside service under a large green tent, she was buried in a nearby cemetery. Richardson, 45, died Wednesday at a Manhattan hospital after falling while skiing Monday at the Mont Tremblant resort in the Canadian province of Quebec.

** Danny Elfman, Dick Tracy original score (Sire): For such a one-dimensional movie, Dick Tracy sure has spawned a lot of music. But most of what has been released wasn't in the movie. This was. All of it - the official score. You know, the orchestra stuff in the movie that's placed among all of the other songs that actually make it to the radio. The funny thing is is that Danny Elfman wrote it. If you've heard of his group, Oingo Boingo, then you know he has more rock credentials than just about any of the artists appearing on those other Dick Tracy releases.

Furniture made of paper? Cardboard chairs were introduced by Frank Gehry in the 1970s, but he was not the first to make paper furniture. In the early 1900s, strips of paper wound around wire were used as a substitute for wicker to make woven chairs and tables. Even earlier, in the 18th century, furniture was made of papier-mache, a mixture of paper, glue and other materials. The mixture was shaped, hardened and lacquered. The finished product was strong enough to make chairs, tables, shelves and even beds.

AN EDITORIAL in the Feb. 1 Orlando Sentinel tantalized me with tidbits of news concerning my childhood hero, Dick Tracy. I was distressed to learn that this paragon of virtuous American manhood is facing the most difficult challenge of a life strewn with obstacles such as Pruneface and Mumbles. What could be worse than learning that Tess is no longer true of heart?But what do I find when I turn to the comics page to cheer my idol on to yet another victory over the forces of evil? I find a plethora of animals who talk to themselves and/or each other and whose IQ exceeds that of their human companions by at least threefold.

All last week, virtually every person I know had Dick Tracy on the brain. I know this because all of them asked if I had been to a screening of the movie and, if so, did I like it.''Have you seen Dick Tracy yet?'' they would say first, and when I responded in the affirmative, they would cock their heads slyly and ask, ''Well?''But in the final three or four days before last Thursday's ''world premiere'' at Pleasure Island 10, most people would just assume I had already Seen the movie - and that it was the only thing on my mind.

Dick Tracy tracks down criminals in the daily comic strip, and collectors stay busy tracking down memorabilia from Tracy's early days.Toys depicting Pruneface, Flattop and other Tracy character pieces are popular. Especially sought after is a red rubber mold dating from the late 1930s or early '40s. The mold made 1-inch plaster figures of different comic strip characters, including Orphan Annie, Tess Truehart, Smitty, Daddy Warbucks and Dick Tracy.And there was the Dick Tracy Burglar Alarm Kit, which was promoted in 1950.

What was behind the Madonna-William Baldwin confab at her place last week, which led to the actor going volcanic with staked-out photogs? The New York Daily News has pieced together the following scenario. See if you buy it: The pop queen has been steaming ever since the much-younger Chynna Phillips caught the eye of Warren Beatty while he and Madonna were still in their Dick Tracy mode last year. Phillips is now a sometime thing with Baldwin, and Madonna seized the opportunity for a payback.

When you were 10, dressing up like ''Dick Tracy'' villains Eraserhead or the Brow was strictly Halloween stuff.But now adults can dress like the leading characters in Disney Studio's Dick Tracy, the just-released comic strip-turned-movie.Several firms have entered the movie-marketing madness with garments patterned after the film's primary personalities, the seductive Breathless Mahoney and the block-jawed detective himself.A Los Angeles firm even has signed up to create drop-dead Breathless Mahoney dresses fit for a movie goddess.

It comes on like gangbusters and, as intended, leaves the audience pumped up and gasping, ''Whoa! Gotta check that one out! When's it gonna pop?''Answer: Dick Tracy, tommy guns blazing, arrives this spring - June 15, to be exact. The Dick Tracy trailer, which runs approximately 70 seconds and delivers quick snatches of Warren Beatty as the Prohibition-era crime-stopper, has begun playing in theaters around the country (and in Central Florida). It's the third wave of what's shaping up as Walt Disney's most elaborate promotional campaign ever - a campaign that could add another $8 million to the film's $22 million production cost.

HAMPTON, Ga. -- With five laps to go, "I thought I was going to get sick in my helmet; I don't think I took more than five breaths the rest of the way," Jimmie Johnson said. The enormousness of his task overwhelmed him, towering, more monumental than any he'd ever taken upon himself before. At this, the end of Sunday's Bass Pro Shops MBNA 500, he must hold on, for in his mirror loomed Mark Martin's Ford, rushing up. "I knew Mark was coming," Johnson said, "but I had 10 angels riding on my car."

POKEMON IS no more dangerous to children than Dick Tracy was to us 50 years ago. We survived Dick Tracy, Flash Gordon and many more of that species. We grew up and matured as all children do.It is apparent that this controversy over Pokemon is another unfounded one promoted by ultra-conservative elements both within and outside the school systems of the nation.I suggest that students, teachers, administrators and parents take a deep breath, sit down and think intelligently about the issue of corruption.

I make no great claims for The Phantom, but I have to admit I enjoyed it in a B-movie sort of way.Based on Lee Falk's 60-year-old comic strip, the film does a surprisingly good job of evoking the antique spirit of old-fashioned comics, pulp novels and movie serials. That's a neat little trick that the folks behind Dick Tracy (1990) and The Shadow (1994) never quite mastered.For the uninitiated, I should explain that the Phantom (Billy Zane) is a masked avenger in a skin-tight purple suit who lives on a remote jungle island with his loyal wolf and trusty Arabian stallion.

AN EDITORIAL in the Feb. 1 Orlando Sentinel tantalized me with tidbits of news concerning my childhood hero, Dick Tracy. I was distressed to learn that this paragon of virtuous American manhood is facing the most difficult challenge of a life strewn with obstacles such as Pruneface and Mumbles. What could be worse than learning that Tess is no longer true of heart?But what do I find when I turn to the comics page to cheer my idol on to yet another victory over the forces of evil? I find a plethora of animals who talk to themselves and/or each other and whose IQ exceeds that of their human companions by at least threefold.

As occupational hazards go, divorce - despite all the pain it can bring - probably is one that police officers think least about as they perform their tough jobs.Now, however, we hear that America's top cop on the comics pages is heading for divorce court.Say it isn't so, Dick Tracy!According to the plot line, Mr. Tracy's wife of 45 comic-years, Tess, will be serving hubby with divorce papers in February because she believes that the detective's only love is his work.Meanwhile, as Mr. Tracy is heading back from the FBI Academy in Washington to try to save his marriage, some pesky terrorists threaten to blow up a monument.

When the New York avant-garde design firm Dialogica presented its Diva sofa at Milan's yearly Salone del Mobile furniture exposition two years ago, its shapely tufted form wasn't nearly as provocative as the color of its cotton velvet skin: the kind of magenta that almost requires sunglasses to temper the brightness. Shown in a setting mixing various intensities of magenta and orange, the designers attracted the attention they sought by making a major color statement.But this high-watt hue was no fluke.

Comic book character Dick Tracy found life on movie screens this summer, but a real Dick Tracy has been fighting crime in Manchester for 11 years. Police officer Richard ''Dick'' Tracy said he has taken a little more ribbing than usual about his name this summer. But he said things are still better than when his partner was Lt. Jimmy Stewart. ''We'd knock on a door and they'd say, who was there. We'd say Jimmy Stewart and Dick Tracy and they'd tell us to get lost,'' said Tracy.

Warren Beatty's Dick Tracy took in box office receipts of $22.5 million over the weekend, making it the highest-grossing opening of a film in the history of Walt Disney Studios, a Disney spokeswoman said Monday.It shattered Disney's previous opening weekend record of $14 million, set two years ago by Who Framed Roger Rabbit. But Tracy's revenues were just slightly more than half the $40.5 million achieved last summer by another comic strip character brought to the big screen - Batman.Beatty starred in and directed Tracy, which cost $30 million to make.

Robert Downey Jr. took on the challenge of Chaplin after a busy but undistinguished career in teen-age and yuppie comedies. Son of underground filmmaker Robert Downey and a one-season cast member of Saturday Night Live, the actor watched all the Chaplin footage he could find.Clint Eastwood's role as William Munny in Unforgiven prompted reviewers to draw comparisons with John Wayne's Rooster Cogburn in True Grit, which won Duke his only Oscar. Both played geriatric Western gunmen showing their age but coming through when needed.

Medieval jousting has been done.Ditto performing horses, the Wild West and Polynesian luaus.When it comes to dinner theater attractions in Central Florida, there isn't much that hasn't been tried, at least once.Scratch celebrity impersonator drag shows off the list - didn't fly.Carving out a niche in the dinner theater market is risky business, but the gangster-themed new kid on the block, Capone's Dinner & Show in Kissimmee, is trying to blast a few holes in the competition.The management at Capone's, which opened in August, is attempting to distance itself from the rest of the pack with an unusual theme and a new twist on feeding the large crowds.